


Black Hole

by GeorgesStandDown



Series: Winding Roads [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Childhood Memories, Children experimenting sexually, Compulsive thoughts, F/F, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Intrusive Thoughts, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Lack of Communication, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Recovery, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Shame, Tabris can't cum with Alistair, Trust Issues, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 10:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15338028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgesStandDown/pseuds/GeorgesStandDown
Summary: Tabris has some issues. She doesn't want to burden her lover with them, even when she's lying on her back, slick with sweat as he fucks her and her mind starts to crumble under the weight.





	Black Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all, this is not only the first fanfiction I've ever written but also the first thing I've written in the past decade that was not a college essay lol. This is pretty much just self-indulgent therapeutic writing as I have been struggling to come to terms with childhood sexual abuse from a close female family member as well as our female friends and how it affects my self-worth and current relationship towards sex.
> 
> I've done like no editing of this so I apologize in advance as my writing skills definitely need improvement. Please feel free to give any feedback and criticism or tell me if I need to add more content warnings.
> 
> Enjoy!

When they are done, when they lie there spent and sweating and he pulls an arm around her waist and nuzzles her neck and hums in sleepy contentment, there is nothing more she wants than to do the same. She stares into the ceiling as his breath evens out, body twitching against hers as he is pulled into a deep sleep. She is on fire, her loins aching, her mind racing between thousands of thoughts in the span of a few seconds because it's not fair. It's not fair that this man, this wonderful man that loves and admires and respects her so much, does everything for her and it's still never enough. That she cannot separate herself from her thoughts for a few hours, that no matter what she does, no matter how much time passes, the memories are seared into her eyelids like a brand that has never properly healed. And she doesn't want him to know.

When Alistair kisses her, her heart races but not just from excitement. It's always there, bubbling under the surface, waiting to be exposed. Behind every smile, every brush of skin, every teasing remark, it pools in her stomach and threatens to peer into the world, past the walls she's created. She doesn't want him to know. He doesn't need to know. She has to push past it on her own, so they might finally embrace without her thoughts threatening to destroy the few moments they are allowed together.

"Vestele?"

Her blood heats through her chest, up her throat and behind her eyes. How long has he been awake?

"It's fine, I'm fine," she says, because it's true, but it's not. She squeezes his arm and smiles into the black. Her eyes burn. 

He says nothing, doesn't have to, his body is tense because he wants to say something, anything. She squeezes his arm again, this time in warning. 

"Is it...did I-?"

"Don't." She swallows, hard. "It was amazing. _You_ were amazing. It's not you."

"But you-"

Between clenched teeth, she tells him, "I know," because she does and it's burning her insides and she wants, _needs_ to fight back the tears. There's no amount of night outside that could completely black out her vision, although she desperately wishes for it so she doesn't see the anguish on his face when he turns to her.

If only she was a poet, a bard, an artist, a storyteller, anything but a fighter. A warrior. Her words are rough and awkward. No words she has ever known, or will ever, could mend the emptiness inside them both at this moment. Her words will not ease his discomfort, nor will his to her despair.

Screwing her eyes shut, she reaches for his face and guides his lips to hers gently, so gently, with as much affection as she can muster with her emotions draining her body of all strength. He returns it in kind, slow and careful, letting out a shaky sigh when they part.

"I don't know what's wrong with me."

Vestele refuses to open her eyes to see the pain she feels etched across his face. Alistair pulls her close. "There's nothing wrong with you. You are the most amazing, brave, beautiful woman I know, and nothing could change that."

He's trying, he's really doing his best, but his words just make the burn behind her eyes shoot to her chest. "It's never enough. Regardless of what I do, or try, my head just..." All the burning makes her head feel fuzzy as she searches her mind for how to tell him, explain the images that come in a rush whenever his head settles between her thighs or when he's moving on top of her and peering down with lidded eyes and a clenched jaw. 

When he looks at her like that, there is the split second that she fears the worst. That Alistair can see the truth in her features, that he somehow can hear her racing thoughts once that she has let the tiniest bit of her guard down. When she looks up at him, she knows _this is Alistair, I'm with Alistair, it's okay, right now we're all safe, I should be enjoying this-_

Until she closes her eyes and the images sweep by, mixing everything together in one single second. It consumes her whole mind until she's only vaguely aware of Alistair's voice, his thrusts, the own sounds sneaking past her lips. It's white noise as the memories come flooding back of watching her own young, wandering hands; caressing of small, pale breasts with her fingers and tongue; crawling over limbs to sit and grind their hips together in a way that makes her head spin but _why is it spinning? What are we doing? It feels good, really good, so good, but why does she always push me away when we finish?_

By the time she's back to herself, she feels more open and naked than ever, irrelevant of the fact her knees are spread and pinned down to the cot by his hands or the rivulets of sweat running down the length of their bodies to where they are joined. But the most terrifying of part of it is the heat that jolts straight to her core when the scenes replay over and over and over. He groans and pushes into her harder, becoming desperate, as it seems like she takes him even deeper, a gush of wetness coating him and spurring him on.

The bile rushes up her throat, violently, catching her erratic breath and squeezing her eyes shut to block her mind. There's more, always more fleeting memories that last a second and send her reeling. _Was that real? When did that happen?_ Who are the others, faceless older girls sitting and watching and giggling and moaning as they touch each other to mimic what was happening to her own body?

And as hard as she fights her mind, she can't stop herself from thinking of her, now that they are older and grown women, how she looked with tears in her eyes and thanked Vestele for rescuing her, for protecting the whole alienage with her selflessness, her voice and empty smile so broken and helpless and Vestele's entire heart aches for her. And yet still, she can't stop the thoughts, _I wonder how much she's changed since she was a child? Are her breasts as pert, how strong the scent of her arousal might be..._

And then, with boiling uncertainty, she remembers Shianni shoving her from her lap, an expression of disgust on her face and a muttered, "We need to stop, we can't do this anymore," but the only thing she can remember from this memory is the sinking in her stomach and blood pounding in her ears as her heart breaks in two.

"Why?" she can see herself asking in that piercing voice. A short, pudgy child with wide eyes and kinky locks that stick to the sweat on her brows. "Did I do something wrong?" There's no answer, and Vestele winces when the memory continues, how pathetic she was when she apologized and begged Shianni to return, to keep going, to not stop touching and kissing and making her feel like she was wanted.

She has to bite back the desire of wishing she could go back, wishing she could peer down at the woman trembling and sobbing on the stone floor of the castle, surrounded by corpses of those who had hurt them, to tell her, _now you know how it feels to be used and tossed aside and left to pick up the pieces by yourself._

That is when the tears start to leak out because she can't tell what's worse: the scorching arousal, or the skin-crawling realization of how badly she wants her loved one to suffer. She wants, with each fiber of her being, she wants to grab her and scream in her face, _why would you do that to me? Why didn't anyone think about what I wanted? Why did you believe I would be fine with being used for someone else's pleasure with no regard for my own? And why couldn't you let me be a child? And why? Why why why why why?_

It doesn't matter. She knows it doesn't matter. Her thoughts would still swarm her even if she shouted it a million times. If she was back in the alienage, if Vestele was standing right in front of her and asked the questions she knew she would never have the strength to ask or know the answers to, no words would stop the bile or the thrumming warmth or the shaking in her legs when her mind drifts to the past instead of staying here, in this moment, with him. 

Because right now he's looking at her like that, like she's everything he's ever wanted and that makes more vomit creep up because she will never be able to give him what he wants; not when she's been torn apart beyond repair and can't stop thinking about their inevitable fate or loses her temper over misplaced gauntlets or how her fingers only move faster when she touches herself at night and the intrusive images of her cousin's hands running along her body overcome her mind.

Because the worst part isn't remembering. The worst part is laying awake and asking herself the same sickening questions, _then why do you enjoy it? Why do you allow yourself to think about it when you're with him?_ And she doesn't know if she will ever find an answer to it, especially when all she can do is bite her pillow and muffle her screams until her throat is hoarse and raw and nothing more comes out.

Now she turns away and lets Alistair wrap his arms around her waist, engulfing her small frame. He kisses her neck, her shoulders, her back, her neck again. In her chest, her heart beats wildly, but whether from his attentions, or her memories, or her terror, she isn't sure. Now, when her mind wanders to Shianni, there's no underlying emotions, no heat, no bile, only an ache. Vestele misses her. She misses all of them. Maybe one day, if she's somehow wrong about their inevitable fate, she can travel back home with him and introduce him to her family and create new memories. Better ones that overshadow her past as she pulls her cousin in for a hug and recounts all their adventures over a bottle of wine while they laugh freely. Maybe she won't have any thoughts lingering in the back of her head about how good it felt when she touched Vestele all those years ago or how soft her body probably is under all those clothes.

And maybe, just maybe, she can start to tell Alistair what goes on in her head. What a strange concept, that he might not be repulsed by her, but rather, accepts and loves her all the same.

She tells him she loves him, and he replies earnestly, because if nothing else at this moment, at least that is true.

**Author's Note:**

> I had surprisingly little trouble writing all this down but it was hard trying to convey memories as just memories and not flashbacks. This is essentially what happens in my brain whenever my boyfriend and I have sex. It's also difficult discussing abuse from a family member that you are currently very close with but still harbor a lot of resentment towards for being abusive, even if they never meant for it to be malicious. 
> 
> I will probably be continuing this as a way to work through my feelings about everything. Thanks for reading!!


End file.
